The Halloween Scene

A Haunted House Is A Big Responsibility, But There's A Lot Of Satisfaction In Scaring The Wits Out Of People.

October 26, 1991|By Sam Hodges Of The Sentinel Staff

A surprise chainsaw figures heavily in the fear-mongering at the Orlando Jaycees' ''Dungeon of Doom.''

Although the dungeon has been open only about a week, Diana Robbins has already seen teen-age boys run from the chainsaw like Olympic sprinters, leaving their girlfriends and younger siblings to a sad, wood-chip fate.

''One kid just took off,'' Robbins recalled. ''He crossed Garland (Avenue) and started running up the grass toward I-4. Finally he looked around to see if anybody was chasing him.''

For Robbins, who has overall charge of the Dungeon of Doom, the sight of a customer running away at full speed makes her hard work seem worthwhile.

''That's what we like,'' she said. ''That's when we know we've done our job.''

It's a tough job, scaring people, and no one knows better than those who assume responsibility for a haunted house.

Haunted houses don't just happen. Somebody's got to find that mannequin to dismember, that spider webb-like stuff to hang from the ceiling, that well-oiled chainsaw. Somebody's got to figure out new ways to terrify an increasingly jaded audience.

People behind the scenes at haunted houses don't get much credit. Despite running a haunted house that last year drew 15,000 customers and raised $50,000 for charity, Diana Robbins has yet to be called ''the Frank Lloyd Wright of haunted houses,'' as well she might be.

Robbins, an Orlando legal secretary, must instead take satisfaction from hearing customers scream and run away. Sometimes there are even better indicators.

''One woman totally wet her pants,'' Robbins reported cheerfully. ''And then Saturday night we had a girl go through, and when she got to the maze, she couldn't take it anymore. She curled up in a corner and wouldn't move. We had to get her out.''

More evidence of a job well done.

The government doesn't keep statistics, but haunted housing starts appear to be on the rise, possibly because many parents would rather escort their children through a haunted house than have them trick-or-treating on streets that may not be safe.

Another reason for haunted house popularity is an old one: People like to be scared. There's even a year-around, for-profit haunted house (Terror on Church Street) scheduled to open by Halloween in downtown Orlando.

Running a large, established non-profit haunted house operation like the Orlando Jaycees' is like running a not-so-small business. Committees begin forming in May, and by mid-October dozens of volunteers are working feverishly, doing everything from stringing lights to sticking pins in masks.

Robbins, with second-in-command Rob Jackson, has to worry about expenses ($8,000 last year), insurance (a $1 million liability policy), publicity (a tie-in with a radio station is essential), admissions policy (pregnant women and anyone with a heart problem or asthma is discouraged from entering) and whether the house is really scary or not.

A semi-dark room with spaghetti in a bowl won't cut it. The principal audience for haunted houses - teen-agers - has grown up seeing high-tech horror movies and attending theme parks that offer fairly sophisticated scares. (Disney World's ''Haunted Mansion'' is one of its most popular attractions.)

This year's Jaycees' haunted house includes, in addition to the obligatory dark maze, an elaborate graveyard, several rooms that suggest specific horror/suspense movies (Aliens, Predator), various high-tech special effects (including one with a laser and air guns), a cast of 30 (high school students who play witches, monsters, mad surgeons, victims of mad surgeons) and that chainsaw that comes out of nowhere.

Robbins, 36, said the final product reflects the work of many twisted minds, not just her own.

''It's collaborative,'' she said. ''You sit around a table and the ideas start flying. People love to try to scare other people.''

Collaboration was also the approach at Universal Studios Florida, which in the last seven weeks has developed its own haunted house. Called ''Dungeon of Terror,'' it opened to the public for the first time Friday night, and will be open twice more: tonight and on Halloween night.

Tim Sepielli, technical director for entertainment at Universal, is in charge of the project. Other staffers contributed ideas for how to frighten patrons. They were inspired by Universal Studios' tradition of making scary movies, such as Frankenstein and Dracula.

The Dungeon of Terror is off-limits to pregnant women and to children under 13 unless they are accompanied by an adult. It begins with a maze so dark that it's impossible to know whether to go forward, or to the right or left. Patrons stumble along, touching walls greased with squishy stuff.

High-tech may be the order of the day in haunted houses, but ''people are basically afraid of the dark and the unknown,'' said Sepielli, 38.